Страница 81 из 90
But more bodies slipped out of the walls, and rose up out of the floor, and dropped from the ceiling; again the entrance ways were blocked and the chamber was full. Because the alien was the mound, and we were just destroying things it had made to fight us. The alien was distracting us, keeping us busy, while the clock ticked down to the great experiment in the streets of Roswell. I had to stop the alien, not just its extremities. I called up my Sight, focused it through my mask, and made myself concentrate on what really mattered. The dark and secret heart of the alien mound: the one thing it couldn’t live without. I glared around me, Seeing terrible things hidden in the walls and floor of the chamber, until finally I Saw, deep below my feet, something that blazed and burned like a dark sun: living energy sourced in alien flesh.
I yelled to Honey to blast the floor with her energy weapon where I pointed, and she nodded quickly and hit the floor with everything she had. The floor rocked beneath our feet, splitting apart, forced open by the crystal weapon’s implacable energies. They dug deeper and deeper into the alien tissues until finally I could see the dark heart itself. It wrapped itself in thick protective alien tissues, struggling to replace them as fast as Honey’s weapon burned them away. I formed one long, slender, and very deadly blade from my golden right hand, and sent it plunging deep into the dark heart of the alien mound.
It exploded. Alien flesh was no match for other-dimensional strange matter. Particularly when driven by the terrible cold anger of the human heart.
The individual alien forms collapsed, sinking in upon themselves, the long ropy tentacles already rotting and falling apart. The cavern shook like an earthquake, great jagged cracks opening up in the slimy walls. The floor seemed to fall away beneath my feet in sudden drops and shudders. The whole mound was dying, rotting, falling apart. I ran for the nearest exit, Honey and Walker right behind me. I followed my Sight back up through the mound, heading for the surface even as the mound collapsed in on itself, sinking down into the earth. I ran through piles of dead alien bodies, kicking them aside, punching holes through walls where necessary. Strange lights flared all around me, vivid energies spitting and crackling helplessly on the air. I ran for the surface with Honey and Walker.
We burst out of the final exit and kept ru
“Go down,” I said to it. “Go all the way down to Hell, where you belong.”
I put away my armour and stood there in the empty street, just a man again. I was shaking and breathing hard from exertion and emotion and from relief that we’d stopped the filthy experiment before it even started. Honey and Walker stood with me, breathing just as hard.
“So,” I said finally. “You came back, Honey. Right in the nick of time. What changed your mind? What about the game and the prize?”
“How was I going to be able to get anything done here with all this nonsense going on?” said Honey reasonably. “Besides, I didn’t get into the spy game to turn my back on people. I serve the American people. As I decide best.”
“What are we going to tell the townspeople?” said Walker. “Do we tell them anything?”
“Would they believe us, without evidence?” I said. “They don’t even have the farmer and his cow in the morgue anymore, remember?”
“This is Roswell,” Walker said dryly. “They’ll believe anything, or at least just enough to make money out of it. This time next year, this will all be a television movie. I wonder who they’ll get to play me?”
“You were never here,” Honey said sternly. “None of us were.”
“Right,” I said. “This isn’t the Nightside. We have to keep a low profile.”
“There could be more aliens . . . from where those things came from,” said Honey, hefting her shimmering weapon. “They could be back.”
“My family will take care of that,” I said. “We have co
“I never knew you could do that,” said Walker.
“Not many do,” I said.
“And you wonder why other organisations don’t trust the Droods,” said Honey. “Your family has secrets the way other families have pets. Would it kill you to share information like that so we could all sleep better at nights?”
“Possibly,” I said. “We don’t take chances. But . . . I will talk to the Matriarch. Sharing can be good. What say the three of us go back to Alexander King, give him the answers we’ve accumulated, and then share the secrets he gives us?”
“Hell,” said Honey, “I’m game if you are. Nothing like hanging out with a Drood to help you see the bigger picture.”
“Fine by me,” said Walker. “But will the Independent Agent agree?”
“The man is dying,” I said. “He doesn’t have enough time left to haggle. He can give his prize to three agents who’ve proved their worth or risk his precious secrets falling into unworthy hands after he’s dead.”
“And . . . Peter?” said Honey. “How do we tell an old man that we got his only grandson killed?”
“We don’t know that he’s dead,” Walker said immediately. “He’s just . . . missing in action.”
“Alexander King wanted his grandson in the game,” I said. “He knew the risks.”
“Did Peter?” said Honey. “He didn’t operate in the same world as the rest of us.”
“No,” said Walker. “He worked in industrial espionage. I’m pretty damn sure he wouldn’t have shared the prize.”
“The game is now officially over,” I said. “We’ve been to all five of the designated areas, investigated each mystery we found there, and come up with an answer. We may not have uncovered the answer to the original Roswell mystery, but I think this . . . is better. Certainly it’s more than enough to prove our worth as the Independent Agent’s successors, which was supposed to be the whole point of the game. Time . . . to call it a day.”
“How are we supposed to let Alexander King know?” said Walker, glaring at the teleport bracelet on his wrist. “How do we persuade these infernal contraptions to take us back to Place Gloria?”
I took out Peter’s phone and showed it to the teleport bracelet around my wrist. “See this?” I said loudly. “Proof, evidence, and answers to all the questions we were set. I know you’re listening, Alexander! We can either give this to you or . . . take it back to our respective organisations. So, beam us up, Scotty!”
And that was when Peter King stepped out of the shadows, stabbed Honey Lake between the ribs with a long-bladed knife,
snatched the phone from my hand, and disappeared, teleported away.
Honey made a shocked, surprised sound, and then collapsed as the strength went out of her legs. I caught her and eased her to the ground. Her whole left side was already soaked with blood, and more ran down between our closely pressed bodies. Walker was saying something, but I wasn’t listening. Honey made a pained sound and blood spilled from her mouth. I held her tightly to me. I looked up at Walker to yell at him to get some help, but the look on his face stopped me. It confirmed what I already knew.
“It was Peter all along,” said Walker. “The treacherous little shit. He killed Katt, and Blue, and—”
“No,” said Honey. “That was me.”
“Hush,” I said. “Hush.”